Poll: Voters unhappy with Senate candidates

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Nevada voters apparently will be holding their noses in November.

The latest U.S. Senate race poll released Friday shows considerable unhappiness with Democrat Harry Reid and Republican tea party favorite Sharron Angle.

Two-thirds of Angle's supporters said they would have preferred another GOP nominee, and nearly 80 percent of registered voters who are undecided or don't like Angle or Reid said they would have preferred a moderate rather than the conservative, according to the Mason-Dixon Polling & Research survey.

Additionally, nearly six in 10 voters who remain undecided or don't like Reid or Angle said they wish Reid hadn't won the Democratic nomination on June 8. The poll done for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and KLAS-TV also showed that among Reid voters, 18 percent prefer another nominee.

The Monday-through-Wednesday telephone poll of 625 registered voters likely to cast ballots in the Nov. 2 election shows Reid and Angle are still locked in a close contest.

Reid is the favorite of 45 percent of those questioned and Angle has 44 percent, a statistical tie. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

To University of Nevada, Las Vegas, political scientist David Damore, the poll shows voters are unhappy with their choices in a year when the state leads the nation in unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcies.

"Both these candidates are flawed. Neither of them is someone you'd want to sit down and hang out with," Damore said. Angle "is having a tough time even convincing a fair amount of Republicans she can win and her ideas would move the country forward."

The anti-Angle sentiment may be a surprise for tea party supporters who thought Reid was finished.

"Republicans thought they had this race in their pockets, but they've seen Harry Reid rise again to make it close," said Mason-Dixon polling chief Brad Coker. "The only reason it's close is they've got a candidate who's being seen as a little out of her league."

But Reid is apparently in the fight of his life. The dismal economy still plays in Angle's favor, and she seems to be withstanding a withering Reid campaign media blitz.

Independent voters and those who say they don't prefer Reid or Angle said they might vote for "none of these candidates."